A changing front garden

One of the nice things about keeping account of garden changes is that it encourages appreciation, at least when progress has been made!

I've been reminded of this again and again, as I enjoy the front garden, with its pocket meadow, sedum bed, raised bed vegetable garden, and various other perennial plantings.

I've especially been enjoying the pocket meadow in the last couple of weeks, and have realized that I keep taking photos from various angles and reflecting on it.  I see it many, many times a day -- out the front door, coming back from a walk, while gardening in the raised beds, departing to or pulling in from an excursion in my car, etc.

This perennial bed (which I now call the pocket meadow) was first planted in the fall of 2009.

It adjoins the raised bed vegetable and herb garden, another perennial border, and the sedum bed, along with various other plantings.

Sept. 2009

Our first gardening project in the new house (a second home at the time) had actually been a small pitcher plant bog, which was  replaced by the sedum bed the following spring, about the time the raised beds were planted for the first time.   

Here was a early musing about how much they added to the landscape.

But to begin, we started with an expanse of mulch, covering the gravel driveway with a layer of shredded hardwood, similar to what was in the rest of the front yard.

Here were the bed outlines for the raised beds -- "sketched" in mulch lines.

It looks SO different today.

sedum bed and vegetable beds, April 2010

 In the first spring season, things had improved already.

I've just pulled out the last of the tomato plants and most of the squash plants in the vegetable garden beds, and sown seeds of fall greens, sugar snap peas where the trellised squash was (crossing my fingers for a very late fall frost), and transplanted some lettuce starts from the local hardware store.

I'm doing a program on fall vegetable gardening and season extension next week, so it's been fun to review the progression of some of these swaps, and reflect on how successful these raised beds have been.  They're attractive as well as productive, even though that requires a bit more "editing" and "grooming" than some vegetable gardens, but as they're up front, it's a priority.  And it's easy to harvest as well as monitor how things are growing, etc.

pocket meadow today

A welcoming front garden, indeed!